Institutions and organizations linked or directly run by the Iranian regime’s lobbies in the US have recently published several fake polls showing mass support for the regime.
Several of these “polls” were conducted by the University of Maryland and Iran Poll, both of which have known regime lobbyists running the show. I could go into detail about who these people are and how they’re linked to the regime, but this piece is not about Iran’s lobbies.
If a person not familiar with Iran sees these polls, they would think that Iranians love the regime and its officials and adore the regime’s missiles and bombs.
It’s worth mentioning that this survey is very similar to a poll conducted by the regime-affiliated Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) in late September.
Another recent survey was conducted by Gallup and said that a whopping 72% of Iranians approved of President Ebrahim Raisi’s job so far and that 59% had “confidence in their national government”.
Now the question is, why would the regime need so many fake polls to show the west how popular it is.
The answer is Ebrahim Raisi, the regime’s new infamous president. The “Butcher of Tehran” is a mid-ranking cleric who is responsible for the execution of thousands of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, hence his nickname. He was also involved in the suppression of dissent since the onset of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. He got his first job as an assistant prosecutor at the age of 20.
Before the regime’s Supreme Leader appointed him President of Iran, he was the regime’s Chief Justice and quickly gained even more notoriety (if that’s even possible) because of the number of executions and brutal punishments handed out by his organization to political and non-political prisoners.
Some might ask why Supreme Leader Khamenei appointed the “Butcher of Tehran” to represent his regime and be his outer face. Because despite what the Biden Administration and the European Union think, Khamenei is very weak. Gone are the days when his regime could tolerate the likes of Khatami, Rouhani, and even Ahmadinejad, who turned on Khamenei in his second term and has now turned into a regime critic.
Khamenei needs a president who will obey him without question. In fact, he is so weak that he was willing to alienate regime powerhouses including Ali Larijani, former parliamentary speaker, by disqualifying him from the presidential race. By appointing Raisi, he has effectively united his regime and discarded anyone who might have questioned his total supremacy.
But this united front comes at a price. It’s not every day that the President of a country is a known executioner of thousands of political prisoners. Hence the fake polls. Especially at a time when 80% of Iranians live under the line of poverty and only 4%, namely regime elites, are affluent. There have been two major nationwide protests in the past four years alone. The last of which was in November 2019 when the regime indiscriminately gunned down at least 1,500 men, women, and children on the streets. The ever-present threat of anti-government protests by angry Iranians is looming and many Iranians say that just a spark will ignite new flames. Khamenei has successfully curbed new protests with brutal suppression and the COVID-19 pandemic which was intentionally given free rein in Iran. However, sooner or later Iranians will once again overcome their fear and take to the streets and prove that these “polls” were a farce.
